


growth spurts

by Indubitably



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indubitably/pseuds/Indubitably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave and John are godlike, but are still children regardless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	growth spurts

His name is Dave, Dave Strider.

He was crafted by Hephaestus, made with the finest metals Gaia has ever birthed, embedded with the tick-tock of intricate clocks as his core. They call him handsome, from the slope of his nose to the end of his red cape. But when he looks in the mirror, all he sees is paper-thin skin covering paper-mache bones. At the tender age of eleven, he wonders what went wrong.

\--

He likes to swordfight.

He’s been sword fighting since he was old enough to crawl and he’s now twelve.

It’s easy to forget the troubles of this world when he holds a sword. Easy to forget how to breath how to think how to feel and Dave doesn’t think he knows how to burn off stress in any other way. He doesn’t want to learn how to burn off stress in any other way.

He used to strife with his brother back when they were younger and Dirk didn’t have bigger and more important things to do than spend time with his little brother. They would spend the whole day outside, going at it like desperate animals with swords sharp and unsheathed. There was nothing graceful about it. All pent up energy and unvoiced frustrations, no sophistication to be found. Just the sound of labored breathing and the clang of sword against sword and a desperation to prove himself.

His sword slices through the dummy.

\--

He’s being followed.

Whoever is following him isn’t do a very good job at hiding. Definitely not a professional and that eases some of his fears. He trails after Dave like a ghost though, never getting too close, but never too far behind that he loses sight of the boy in red. Dave tries to pretend that he doesn’t notice him, but that’s unnatural and curiosity is a very strong thing indeed. He looks. “Why are you following me?”

The other boy jerks a little, surprised by the interaction. But then his eyes narrow into these little slits and Dave can feel his lips twisting into a frown. His hand shifts towards the sword strapped to his hip. “What,” he barks, “never seen another person or something?”

“Uh, no?” The angry look is gone, replaced by one of confusion. He smiles then, leans in close to Dave. “But I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you lost?”

“Don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

He laughs, twists in the air to lie upside-down, and his windsock hood pools on the ground. “It kind of is? It would suck if you were lost and it would suck even more if I don’t help you since this is kind of my place. But if you are not lost, that’s cool too. I don’t get a lot of visitors.

He rights himself then, plants his feet firmly on the ground. “My name’s John Egbert, what’s yours?” the other boy asks as he holds out his hand, a smile on his face. Dave raises an eyebrow, regards this strange boy who doesn’t know to fear others yet.

And indeed he is a strange boy. A strange, blue-eyed, wild-haired boy who travels on the wind like he’s a feather just drifting along lost to the world. Dave recognizes that name, heard it uttered in hushed tones. John’s a child of Typheus, created to bring mischief to the world and had the breeze breathed into him. He plays with hurricanes the same way Dave plays with volcanoes: recklessly like the thirteen-year-old boys they couldn’t, but should be. They say that he’s dangerous, shouldn’t be handled, shouldn’t be trusted. A liar. But he thinks that John’s smile, how it crinkles those blue eyes, is the most genuine thing he has ever seen.

(And it surprises him that something like that could still exist in a world like this.)

He takes the hand. “Name’s Dave.”

\--

“Why do you always wear those dumb shades?” John asks him one day, just out of the blue. The sun beats down on their bare backs and they’re two fourteen-year-old boys now with their feet dangling off the pier and their skin peeling off their shoulders.

Dave tries to go back to a time before he wore shades, but he can’t seem to find one. “My shades aren’t dumb.”

“They are pointy anime shades. They are pretty dumb, Dave.”

“No, flip off. My brother wears these shades too. They’re cool.”

John lets out this soft ‘hmmn…’ noise and watches the fish swim around his feet. They’re all colorful and beautiful, healthy and shimmering with vibrant iridescent colors. Fishes of paradise, fitting for the gods of this world. John splashes the water and the fish scatter. They don’t come back after that. “You really look up to your brother, you know that? Don’t you swordfight because of him too?”

Dave shrugs.

“I don’t know man, I think you do a lot of stuff because of him. The irony, the sword fighting, the shades? Maybe you should do your own stuff once in a while.” John smiles at Dave, and the wind ripples the water. “I mean— I bet your brother is cool and all, but you’re your own person too.” He pulls his legs out of the water, stands up and stretches. “Just between you and me,” John bends down, close enough that his black hair tickles Dave’s temple. “You’re a pretty cool guy, Dave.” He gives the other a hug before he disappears into the wind.

That night Dave sees aviator shades resting on his bed and a note from John (“baby steps, dude!!! :)”). He whips them onto his face, stares at the old shades in his hands. He thinks of Dirk, thinks of John, and stores them in a drawer never to be touched again.

When Dave looks in the mirror, he still sees the same old paper-thin skin covering paper-mache bones, but he thinks of John and smiles.

\--

He doesn’t dream very often because dreaming means that he would have to be sleeping and sleeping isn’t a thing that he does often. It’s hard to fall asleep when one hears the steady tick-tock of clocks counting down all obnoxious like tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. It’s been like that for all fifteen years of his life, but this night is different.

This night, Dave dreams.

He dreams of broken bodies, broken fates, and of broken children. He dreams of bird talons tearing at his brittle hair, of wings thrashing behind him, and of unfathomable knowledge overflowing and overriding his system. He dreams that he turns into a beast, a half-crow half-boy monstrosity who’s seen too much didn’t do enough couldn’t save John couldn’t save John couldn’t save John and the smell of burnt flesh suffocates him.

Dave wakes up choking, panicking, an unknown adversary squeezing his throat shut. He just wants to breath, can’t breath, and he thrashes on his bed. “Dave?!” But John is there now; hands soothing over his pounding heart, and his eyes are bluer than Dave remembers. It hits him—he’s not wearing his shades— and he feels vulnerable, too open, too young, and he wishes that John didn’t have to see him like this. Wishes that he could phase through the bed and disappear because this is embarrassing, so embarrassing, and the shame works against him. But Dave clings to John all the same as he tries to pull himself together.

But John doesn’t care. Just presses his forehead to Dave’s and whispers, “Just breathe, just breathe, in out, in out, in out…”

John bleeds from where Dave’s nails dig into his skin, like talons piercing delicate skin.

\--

What John lacks in finesse he more than makes up for it in brute strength. He swings the hammer like he has the force of a hurricane backing him up, cocky and determined because he’s sixteen now, almost an adult and that’s a big thing.

The first time he and Dave fight, he breaks Dave’s sword.

Snaps it right in half and sends it flying through the air and Dave lets out this strangled noise. He darts off to retrieve it and he’s back in a literal second trying to attach the tip by sheer will power. It doesn’t work and John feels like he just ran Dave’s brother through with a sword when they make eye contact.

“I’m so sorry,” is the first thing that comes out of John’s mouth and he really does mean it, Dave can tell that. But a simple apology isn’t enough to make up for snapping his favorite sword in half, but this is John, and Dave just doesn’t know how to respond. So he doesn’t and just stares at his half-a-sword and thinks that maybe it’s time to call it a day. He leaves without saying anything.

The next morning Dave wakes up with a shoddily wrapped sword at the food of his bed. He knows whom it’s from, looks around for his guest, but John isn’t here. He holds it in his hands, tests the weight of it, and decides he likes it, but he doesn’t unwrap it and puts it back on his bed. He sits around waiting for John, but he doesn’t show up.

And still he waits and waits and waits, but still no appearance of John. Dave wakes up to new presents every morning though and he doesn’t understand what John is trying to say and he thinks that John doesn’t know either.

When Dave sees John again, he’s back at John’s place for the first time since he was thirteen. John’s sitting next to one of the oil streams, watching the sky. The bioluminescent trees and mushrooms bath him in their eerie blue glow, alien and foreign, and Dave looks up to see the sickly green hues of the clouds, the perpetual nighttime of John’s home. The fireflies dart about, looking for a way out, and Dave looks at John and wonders about the things John doesn’t tell him about.

\--

He thinks he’s a big kid now, but seventeen isn’t all that big, but it’s bigger than fifteen and thirteen, and that’s all that he cares about. John doesn’t act much different now than he did when he was thirteen, but Dave is grateful for that though he doesn’t know why. There’s just something comforting about John’s presence that he can’t describe so he doesn’t try and just watches.

But he does wonder if John was born like this, all light-hearted gimmicks, an easy smile, a hero cause John is a hero in all the ways Dave wishes he could be, but isn’t. And he wonders why he was born the way he is. With calluses on his hands, skin stretched taut against flesh and bones, and the clocks tick-tick-tick away in his head.

He watches John do loop-de-loops through the burning hot sky and he seems more at home in Dave’s land than Dave does and he thinks it’s kind of funny how that works. The heat of the molten lava churning through his land makes him look like a lobster, too saturated in red, but it looks good against the blue of John’s clothes. The blue of his eyes, the curve of his strong square jaw, within the folds of his clothes, it just looks good against John.

“John, you plan on coming down here any time soon?” Dave can barely make out his figure, specifics lost on him, but he can imagine John rolling his eyes and there he is, steadily coming back down to him. His face is flushed red and Dave thinks that his skin might start peeling in a couple of days, but John’s smile is brighter than it has been in a long time and Dave takes in a shaky breath because he wishes that he were a god so he could give John the world or the universe. Give him everything and more because John deserves it, he deserves it all, but Dave’s not a god and John wouldn’t want a world, let alone a universe.

“What? Can’t handle a few minutes by yourself?” John teases, taking his rightful place next to Dave. Dave pretends not to notice when John’s head knocks against his shoulder and doesn’t leave. “Or is it just that you don’t like being away from me?”

He wets his lips. “Yes, that is definitely the reason. I can’t get enough of your goober charm and gigantic teeth click-clacking away at me. Please keep talking to me about bad cinematography because I’m a masochist that way. Oh, it hurts me in all the right ways.”

“You suck,” John laughs, his hand slipping into Dave’s.

“You love me anyways,” Dave says as he bends down and presses his lips to John’s.

\--

They’re eighteen this year, finally adults though John still guffaws at fart jokes and Dave still likes making fart noises with his armpits. “Shit’s weird,” Dave says, red eyes squinting into the distance, shades pushed up to hold his bangs back. “Doesn’t feel like anything’s changed.”

“It has though,” John says as he loops his hood around Dave’s neck and pulls him down for a kiss.


End file.
